Several people contributed to the definition of transhumanism, which was originated by Max More. Greg Burch, David Pearce, Kathryn Aegis, and Anders Sandberg kindly offered extensive editorial comments.

The presentation in the cryonics section was, and still is, directly inspired by an article by Ralph Merkle.

Over the years, this FAQ has been updated to provide a substantial account of transhumanism. Extropy Institute (ExI) was a source of information for the first version of the Transhumanist FAQ, version 1.0 in the 1990s. WTA adopted the FAQ in 2001 and Nick Bostrom added substantial information about future scenarios. However, with the contributions of close to hundred people from ExI, Aleph, Transcedo, and WTA, and the UK Transhumanist Association. New material has been added and many old sections have been substantially reworked.

In the preparation of version 2.0, the following people have been especially helpful: Eliezer Yudkowsky, who provided editorial assistance with comments on particular issues of substance; Dale Carrico who proofread the first half of the text; and Michael LaTorra who did the same for the second half; and “Reason” who then went over the whole document again, as did Frank Forman, and Sarah Banks Forman. Useful comments of either substance or form have also been contributed by (in alphabetical order): Michael Anissimov, Samantha Atkins, Milan Cirkovic, José Luis Cordeiro, George Dvorsky, James Hughes, G.E. Jordan, Vasso Kambourelli, Michael LaTorra, Eugen Leitl, Juan Meridalva, Harvey Newstrom, Emlyn O’Reagan, Christine Peterson, Giulio Prisco, Reason, Rafal Smigrodzki, Simon Smith, Mike Treder, and Mark Walker.

Many others have over the years offered questions or reflections that have in some way helped shape this document.

8.1 When was the FAQ written? The FAQ is a compilation of transhumanist writings since 1989. Many of the ideas of transhumanity were covered in Extropy Institute's Extropy The Journal of Transhumanist Thought from the late 1980s through the late 1990s, and which have been referenced in our FAQ. In order to provide state-of-the-art reliability, ExI's FAQ has been revised over the years to provide accurate answers to the crucial questions about transhumanity and the role of extropy since its earliest beginnings and its far future.

8.3 Is it the only Transhumanist FAQ? There are many transhumanist FAQs available on the Internet. As the original transhumanist organization, Extropy Institute's goal is to provide an accurate and reliable FAQ for the growing culture of transhumanity.